The Black Panthers not only had their weapons confiscated, later returned, and then confiscated once again after being taken to jail later on, the whole reason they were carrying them in the first place was because they were
specifically protesting the fact that California was attempting to take away their rights to own them:
Four or five carloads of the Black Panther group later drove into a service station at 15th and L Streets. Several police officers took the demonstrators to the city jail.
An officer said they had not been charged with any offense, but added: “We’re going to take them all down and check them all out and we’re going to check out all these weapons.”
Outside of the police office ... one man who identified himself as Bobby Seale of Oakland read a page-long statement of the Black Panther Party. It declared: “The Black Panther party for self-defense calls upon the American people in general and the black people in particular to take careful note of the racist California Legislature which is considering legislation aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless at the very same time that racist police agencies throughout the country are intensifying the terror, brutality, murder and repression of black people.”
He apparently was referring to a bill by Assemblyman Don Mulford, R-Piedmont, which forbids carrying a loaded weapon within an incorporated area.
Iow, the whole purpose of the protest was about their guns.
The paid Michigan terrorists, otoh, were not protesting anything at all and had zero reasons--other than terror--to have their guns with them. When you're paid to show up somewhere with your gun on you, you are a stooge, not a protestor.
But even if some among them had been recruited by the paid stooges and were too fucking stupid to understand how they were being used by powerful rich elites, they STILL would have zero reasons to bring their guns as the alleged protest had nothing to do with gun rights.